Well just add more data points (7, 11, 13, etc) until the simplest solution is a prime solution. Would this program be smart enough to generate the right algorithm?
Of course, an AI would just generate a prime algorithm because it’s well known, but not all problems are well known. In fact, most problems I’m solving everyday are not. So for the AI, it may as well be the prime lookup problem for Barliman.
Barliman is interesting. What if I write f(0) = 2, f(1) = 3, f(2) = 5? Would it be smart enough to generate a functioning prime number lookup function (nevermind efficiency)?
Defining specifications IS programming. We are well pass the age in which we write specs first, Assembly later. Now most programming languages focus primary on high level business logic. These are called “high-level programming languages”.
The question then becomes “Can LLMs become even higher level programming languages?”. I think the answer to that question would be “no”. LLMs have the ability to mix existing code examples into new code, these code are not guaranteed to work, so they need human intervention to make it right. And it must be “human” specifically because LLMs have not the intrinsic understanding of the code and therefore would often stuck in a loop (of emitting the same code back and forth).
I have also tried them before, LLMs are good at well-documented problems, well-documented frameworks, and well-documented programming languages. Let them solve niche problems, and you would spend all day tweaking prompts to get it to give the right answer, at which point, why not simply write the code yourself? LLMs also fail with big enough codebases.
Interestingly, I as frequent visitor of /r/Vietnam subreddit, once saw a post showing concern about the impact of USAID on HIV in Vietnam. Needless to say, I feel so underestimated. As if my country is some poor backwater economy in the eyes of Westerners.
I’ve been expecting the AI bubble to burst for ages but I’ve never imagined that the reason for it would be “AI is actually efficient”. Capitalism is truly counterintuitive.
Let them know that the masters are always watching.